THIS WEEKEND
From the dark of night, New Line's vampire action film Blade
drove a stake through the hearts of the competition by opening at number
one with $17.1M over the Friday-to-Sunday period, according to final
studio figures. Its powerful opening put an end to Saving
Private Ryan's four-week reign atop the
box office charts. Sinking its teeth into 2,322 theaters, Blade,
starring Wesley Snipes, sliced up a bloody $7,353 average per coffin. Based
on the Marvel Comics character, Blade
is the story of a half-vampire half-human hero who seeks revenge on his
enemy Deacon Frost, played by Stephen Dorff.

Blade
has given Snipes the best opening weekend of his career edging out the
$16.9M debut of U.S. Marshals
from earlier this year. The actor has not had a number one film in nearly
three years when To Wong Foo, Thanks For
Everything! Julie Newmar spent two weeks
at the top in September of 1995 . For New Line Cinema, Blade
gave the distributor its ninth biggest opening ever. With a reported budget
of $45M, Blade
had a strong launch considering the R-rated picture was a top choice among
teenage boys. New Line has a good history of marketing martial arts and
comic pictures to this demographic group. In August 1995, Mortal
Kombat exploded on the scene with $23.3M;
last August Spawn
opened with an impressive $21.2M; and last November New Line hit number
one again with Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
which opened with $16.8M.

Slipping a notch to
second place was Steven Spielberg's gut-wrenching war drama Saving
Private Ryan with $10.1M in its fifth
attack. Off only 23%, the critically-acclaimed motion picture has pushed
its total to $142.7M making it the eighth highest-grossing film for the
Oscar-winning director. Ryan
has also become the second biggest release of the year, passing Deep
Impact and Godzilla,
and trails only Armageddon which
has amassed $185M. Given the current box office trajectories of the two
summer films, and the light competition in the weeks ahead, both Ryan
and Armageddon should
be able to reach the $190M area creating a tense battle for the summer
box office crown.

Another overachiever
was found in third place. Fox's runaway hit comedy There's
Something About Mary grossed $7.7M over
the weekend and crossed the $100M mark on Saturday, its 39th day of release.
Down a scant 13%, Mary's
legs show no sign of slowing as the Farrelly Brothers hit moved up a notch
from last weekend and has thus far zipped up $104M without ever reaching
the number one or number two spots. Once again having the lowest decline
in the top ten, Mary
became the ninth release of the year to cross the blockbuster threshold.
Adding in movies released in December, that brings the overall total of
films hitting that milestone during the calendar year to thirteen.

The popularity of this
romantic comedy, which stars Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, and Matt Dillon,
has surprised most industry observers and has given its studio one of the
most profitable titles of 1998. Stiller and Dillon both have $100M hits
on their resumes for the first time while directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly
make it a deuce after their 1994 smash Dumb
and Dumber which grossed $127.2M. As for
the dazzling Ms. Diaz, Mary
became her third blockbuster joining The
Mask ($119.9M) and My
Best Friend's Wedding ($126.8M). The remarkable
staying power of Mary
has made it the only summer movie to spend six consecutive weeks in the
top five. If it continues to perform this well into the autumn months,
Mary could
flirt with $150M in domestic ticket sales which should fuel a lucrative
international run.

Another Fox release
took fourth as How Stella Got Her Groove
Back finished the frame with $6.5M pushing
its ten-day cume to an amorous $22.2M. The Angela Bassett romantic drama
declined 43% in its sophomore weekend but still enjoyed the second-best
per-theater average in the top ten. By comparison, second weekend drops
for other recent dramas aimed at African-American women have included 25%
for last year's Soul Food,
6% for 1995's Waiting to Exhale
(though that compares two four-day holiday frames), and 57% for Poetic
Justice from the summer of 1993. Stella
should groove her way to about $35-40M.

Rounding out the top
five was the Brian De Palma thriller Snake
Eyes, starring Nicolas Cage, with $5M
in its third roll of the dice. Down 42%, the Paramount conspiracy film
has grossed $40.5M to date and looks headed for a final tally of around
$55M.

Opening in sixth with
$4.7M was the dark comedy Dead Man on Campus
also from Paramount. With heavy promotion on MTV, the comedy about two
failing college students who try to make their roommate commit suicide
so they can get straight A's debuted in 1,797 classrooms with a $2,618
average. With no big-name stars, Dead Man
should pick up some small business in the next two weeks before its target
audience heads back to school.

The Drew Barrymore
fairy tale film Ever After has
proven to be a solid hit with strong midweek business and small weekly
declines. Taking in another $4.6M, the Fox fantasy picture is running 18%
ahead of that other ancient literature remake aimed at teens - Romeo
And Juliet. That 1996 update, also from
Fox, starred Leonardo Dicaprio and Claire Danes and ended up grossing $46.4M.
Ever After
seems destined for a charming final total of approximately $65M.

Sony's new release
Dance With Me
was in eighth with $4.5M. Debuting in 1,467 ballrooms, the Vanessa L. Williams
picture averaged a decent $3,073 per location. Ninth place was claimed
by Disney's The Parent Trap
with $3.9M. The family film should hit $60-65M by the end of its run.

Warner Bros. saw two
disastrous performances over the weekend from its offerings. First, the
expensive, yet critically-panned adventure film The
Avengers needed saving from all the negative
buzz that surrounded it. The spy film plunged 64% and barely hung onto
a top ten position with $3.7M take which lifted its ten-day gross to just
$17.8M. Look for a final domestic tally of about $25M for this $60M-budgeted
film. The new release from Warners this weekend, the spoof comedy Wrongfully
Accused starring Leslie Nielsen, opened
poorly with $3.5M. The studio backed the film with lots of support including
a launch in 2,062 theaters (very wide for a late summer freshman) and a
substantial advertising campaign. Unfortunately, moviegoers were not amused
as the comedy averaged a pitiful $1,700 per site.

The world's most dominant
motion picture, Titanic,
netted $540,617 in domestic ticket sales over the Friday-to-Sunday period
pushing its record-breaking cumulative total to $599,657,813. For the first
time in 36 weeks, the Oscar-winning film dropped out of the Top 20. Be
sure to check Box Office Guru all week long for the special report
TITANIC : Countdown to $600 Million,
which will feature daily updates on the film's voyage to the historic mark.

In limited release,
Gramercy opened the romantic comedy Your
Friends and Neighbors to the tune of $340,276
in 32 theaters for a promising average of $10,634. Meanwhile, Miramax launched
another romantic comedy, the Boston-based Next
Stop, Wonderland, in eight sites and cumed
$123,000 for a strong $15,375 average.

Compared to my projections,
Blade
powered past the $13M forecast I had. Dead
Man on Campus was a little stronger than
my $3M prediction. Dance With Me
and Wrongfully Accused
were very close to my projections of $5M and $4M respectively. Saving
Private Ryan came in almost exactly at
my $10M forecast.

Take this week's new
Reader Survey on President Clinton. In
last week's survey, readers were asked when they planned to see Star
Wars : Episode I. Of 1,541 responses,
73% said on opening weekend, 21% voted later in its run, and 6% said they
do not plan to see it.

Be sure to read the
Weekly Rewind column which features a report
on the top films of Wesley Snipes. This Wednesday's new column will focus
on the top September openings of the decade. For a review of Blade
visit Chief's Movie Review
Page.

The top ten films grossed
$67.8M which was up 3% from last year when G.I.
Jane opened at number one with $11.1M,
and up 32% from 1996 when The Island of
Dr. Moreau debuted at the top with $9.1M.
Be sure to check in again on Thursday for a complete summary of
next weekend's activity which will see the opening of Miramax's 54.

Below are final
studio figures for the weekend. Click
on the title to jump to its official home page:

This column is updated three times each week
: Thursday (upcoming weekend's summary),
Sunday (post-weekend analysis with
estimates), and Monday night (actuals).
Source : EDI, Exhibitor Relations. Opinions expressed in this column are
those solely of the author.